Family Ties
by ladyofdarkstar
Summary: Oneshot in honor of Richard LeParmentier's (the actor who played Admiral Motti in ANH) passing this month. A stormtrooper is sent to escort Admiral Motti's sister aboard the Death Star for a chat about fulfilling family obligations. Lighthearted and loving portrayal of brother and sister, most likely to the annoyance of said stormtrooper forced to witness it. Reviews are love!


A/N: A oneshot dedicated to Richard LeParmentier, the actor who played Admiral Motti in ANH. I was saddened by his passing earlier this month. While Motti was created to be hated by many (myself included as one of my favorite literary hobbies is Motti-bashing), Richard was a warm and caring man with a great sense of humor. He loved his fans and attending Star Wars conventions. This story is in honor of him, showing a lighter side to the Motti most of us love to hate.

I've also included the use of the main character (the stormtrooper escorting Jentessa) from **Loyal soldier of the Empire - Journal of an Imperial Stormtrooper** by **Hoplite39** with the author's permission. The story is awesome, and you can't help but love the narrator. Please go check it out. You'll love it. :D

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my OC. Please do not sue. This is purely for fun.

* * *

I knew this one was going to be trouble. For one thing, he was more attentive than your average stormtrooper. For another, he had a grip like a pair of hyperdrive vices. I could almost feel the bruises from his gauntleted fingers on my arm all the way down to the bone. For whatever reason, he wasn't going to let go of me. It was almost as if his life depended on it.

With a sigh that came from my toes, I let him drag me into the waiting turbolift. Struggling against him was useless. And if I was to believe him, the next time I tried to escape he was going to stun me into unconsciousness and drag me the rest of the way to wherever it was he was told to take me. Maybe he was still upset about that little stint I pulled the last time I tried to escape. Throwing a stun grenade into the room and then pushing his partner down an empty ray shaft might be what had set him off.

I was a shallow shaft, if I was to be honest. It wasn't deep enough to kill him, but it was narrow enough to wedge him there tightly with all that bulky white armor to add to his girth. And how was I to know that their armor carried stun compensators in it! Did I look like an Imperial weapons technician? I was a simple law clerk. No more, no less.

It was anyone's guess as to why I was summoned before an Imperial Admiral.

"You can let go now," I tried, giving my arm a tiny tug.

He didn't budge. He continued to stare straight ahead as the decks flew by.

And said nothing at all.

"It's okay to talk to me," I tried again. "I'm not a rebel. And I'm really sorry about the stun grenade thing. It was a leftover bauble from this one rebel we did process through our center and turn over to you guys. Though he was more of a child than any actual threat. Still, the law is the law."

The only sound was the turbolift grinding away.

I flicked a glance at him, wondering what he looked like beneath his helm. Was he tall and well built? Slender with a runner's build? Was he scarred all over, a veteran of many campaigns? There was no way to tell beneath that armor, no indication by the tone of his voice on those rare moments he spoke to me. Those helmets made every voice come out like a standard filtered male. Inflection was barely present if at all. He was just another faceless cog in the Imperial War machine.

"You do this often, escorting duty, I mean?"

Silence.

"If you don't start talking, I'm going to start singing. And trust me, you don't want that."

There was the slightest twinge, the slightest turn of his head in my direction. As if he were studying me, wondering if my threat was as serious as I made it out to be. I smiled at him, a dazzlingly bright smile. He turned back to face the door.

"If that was meant to be intimidating, it was wasted on me, my friend. I can't see the glare behind your helmet. I'm an eye person, you see. One of those people that feel you can learn everything about a person's soul by gazing into their eyes. Without eye contact, there's pretty much no way to intimidate me."

More silence.

This was just too much. I couldn't stand it anymore.

I reached out one hand, one fingertip, and touched it to where I thought the nose portion of the mask was. That got me a response, alright. Let's just say that I was starting to sing, though not in the off-key tones of my chosen song. It was more the lifting of my voice in a very not pleasant way as the flat of his free hand caught me high on the chest yet just beneath my throat. No damage was done, save for some extra bruising on the arm he still held in a steel grasp. He'd succeeded in momentarily stunning me, pushing the breath from my lungs as if I'd been slammed against the floor. The world went fuzzy for a moment as my body overcame the sudden lack of oxygen.

"Okay," I gasped. "No touching you. You're the only one aloud to do the touching. Got it. My apologies."

We resumed our standing still, the turbolift starting its sideways pass through the heart of the Death Star. I reached a hand up to where his had pushed me, feeling where the bruise should have been. This had to be the most bizarre trip through the Imperial system I had ever had, to wrap up a rather strange day to begin with. It started with being present—accidentally—at a demonstration where a rebel sympathizer had thrown a rock (a rock of all things!) at a stormtrooper, touching off a riot as the trooper retaliated. Then running for my life with the rest of the innocent bystanders as the entire squad of them opened fire on the congregated mob.

Then mistaking a set of four stormtroopers as rebel liberators at my office and tossing that stun grenade at them, after shoving the nearest one into the open ray shaft. The second nearest one had grabbed me by the hair, yanking my head back and shoved his blaster at my temple. It was this guy here, the one doing his best imitation of blind obedience, that had saved my life. In that moment between life and death, he'd recognized my face and muttered something about a "previous Order 6932A(JM)" that stopped his pal from burning me down where I stood.

I didn't know what in the known galaxy an 'order 6932A' meant, but it was a good bet that the JM at the back were my initials.

"So are you going to tell me what Order 6932AJM is all about?"

Again he turned a fraction of the way towards me, then back to the doors. In stony silence.

"I'm serious about that singing thing. I'll do it. We'll both suffer for it. What's that they say, 'misery loves company?'"

His free hand twitched slightly, and I had to wonder if he was wanting to reach for the holstered blaster at his side. That was another oddity, another reason I knew he was trouble. Aside from momentarily removing my ability to breathe, he'd been as polite as a stormtrooper could be towards his prisoner. I'd heard all kinds of rumors about how rough these guys could behave, and saw a bit of it with my own eyes during that riot. They didn't mess around.

At all.

So why was he tolerating me?

I found out a moment later.

The turbolift came to a stop, the doors parting to reveal… carpet. Plush, deep carpet in a red so dark it was nearly black. The walls were a soothing cream color instead of the industrial steel that made up the rest of the Death Star. Faint music, sounding oddly familiar to me, floated melodiously through the air. Niches in the wall here and there displayed artwork of various types. Again, all of it was oddly familiar, nagging at the back of mind.

I didn't have much time to ponder it, though, as my escort moved me forward. Another set of double doors stood before us, and this time I did offer the first bit of resistance since I tossed the stun grenade. I knew that crest painted on those doors. And all the music and the art came together in my head.

"I really don't need to bother him. You can just tell him I gave my regards and left. This really isn't necessary…"

And I really didn't have a choice. Another amazingly fast and controlled move and he was behind me, his free hand gripping my other arm. It was either walk forward or let him run me over. And I had a sneaking suspicion that he'd simply lift me up by my arms and walk me forward the rest of the way if I tried to stop.

The double doors parted, and I hung my head with a resigned sigh. "Hello, brother."

Admiral Conan Antonio Motti stood in the center of a posh living room decorated in the latest style from Imperial Center. Screens carefully placed into the walls gave the illusion of windows, the screens displaying the glowing lights of thousands of buildings. Speeders zipped through the night sky in those fake windows, making me feel as if I was standing in his apartment back home. He was dressed in his full uniform, a glass of something aquamarine in color held in one hand. Most likely Bothan brandy if I knew him at all.

"Admiral Motti," the man behind me said, releasing my arms only when the doors closed behind us. "Miss Motti is presented per order Order 6932A(JM), alive and unharmed."

Ah, so that's what that order meant. Fetch this person, alive and unharmed. Well, I'm sure there was a caveat in there somewhere that allowed for a little harm. The bruise on my arm was testament to that.

"Thank you, stormtrooper. You have my expressed gratitude for a job well done," he replied to my captor, and then turning to stare at me. Shaking his head slightly. "Is this what it really takes to have my baby sister come to visit me? Must I really issue an order for your detainment?"

All I could do was shrug a shoulder. "I like my freedom, such as it was," I tossed a glance back at the stromtrooper. "Oh, I think I owe him and you an apology. Could you order him to talk to me so I can do that the proper way? He's very good at being silent."

"He is very proficient at his duties, unlike some people in this room."

I tore my gaze free of my escort, flopping down unceremoniously into the nearest chair. "Don't start, Con. It's been a wicked few days. Traveling on a Star Destroyer isn't the best when you're not exactly wanted. I should probably apologize to Captain Kand for being such a disturbance on his ship, too."

It was Conan's turn to flick a glance at the stormtrooper. "I trust my orders were carried out to the letter?"

"Yes, sir. Miss Motti was not harmed unnecessarily."

"Unnecessarily?"

"I threatened to sing to him if he didn't talk to me," I supplied, toeing off one shoe and then the other.

I didn't bother to tell him how my escort had had to literally chase me down a hallway on the _Peremptory _the last time I was trusted to anyone else. He was very fast for all that heavy armor, and agile as a lizard. I learned the hard way that I wasn't getting away from him any time soon. And wouldn't you know it, Captain Kand had figured out that I would slip away from anyone else. He'd put us together for the entire trip.

I really owed everyone an apology now. I wasn't trying to be a pain. I just didn't want to have this very conversation. "You know how much I hate long silences."

He winced sympathetically. "So long as no permanent harm was done, to you or to him."

"Just to my ego," I lamented. "He's the first man ever to resist my flirting. If he's even a man. I can't tell beneath that armor. Sorry if you are a woman and I've been calling you a man."

Again, stony silence. I threw up my hands and leaned back in the seat.

"I seem to recall another man resisting your charms," Conan replied, sitting on the arm of my chair. "A certain Count Averstan whom you were supposed to marry."

"I said not to start. It's the reason I ran off to be a law clerk and haven't been around to visit you."

"You are a Motti, Jentessa, and of marriageable age. Why shouldn't you match well? If Count Averstan does not meet your approval, why not an Imperial Captain?"

"Why not any Imperial, then? Why not him?" I jerked a finger over my shoulder, pointing to my yet unnamed escort. "Mr. Trooper, will you marry me? So far you have that whole arranged-marriage attitude down perfectly. If you continued to never speak to me during the length of our marriage, it would be considered a raging success!"

Conan's eyes went flat, his lips compressing in a thin line. "Tessa… It's impolite to point."

"You mean it's impolite to want to marry someone beneath the station you so think I need to uphold."

He ran a hand across his brow, suddenly looking as if he'd aged twenty years in a heartbeat. For a moment I felt regret at teasing him. Running this battle station must have been a huge undertaking, the strain of it showing in the set of his shoulders. So why in the Empire was he adding me to the list of problems on his plate? He knew I was completely irreverent, that I was a walking, talking, breathing political mess. Why he was trying to marry me off to someone important was beyond me.

I reached out a hand, patting his shoulder tenderly. "Conan, I'm not ready to be married. Can't I just be myself for a few years?"

He gazed down at me, and I saw in his eyes what I hadn't seen since he put on that Imperial uniform. Love. He loved me, and I loved him. He was my older brother, the one that had carried me around on his shoulders when I was little, that had let me run around his first Star Destroyer when he attained the rank of Captain like it was my personal doll house.

"I worry about you, Tessa. You're the only family I have left that I trust and I want to see you well taken care of if anything happens to me."

I pointedly stared around the room, as if I could see the entirety of the Death Star through the walls. "What could possibly happen to you here?"

"I would ask the same of you, if you had married Count Aversten like I arranged."

"Me? What could happen to me? Okay, that was a bad question to ask. I'm sure my escort and his team filled you in on what happened with the riot and all. Tell you what, if you stop talking about political marriages, I promise to stay on the Death Star as long as you want under your protective watchful eye. I'll even behave and wear a dress to those State Dinners you've been after me to attend. Just… can we table the marriage thing for now?" I grinned impishly at him, leaning in close to whisper. "Or so help me, I'll grab that trooper over there and marry him before you know what hit you."

He couldn't stop the smile, nor the laugh that quickly followed on its heels. "Okay, Tessa," he kissed my forehead, rising to his feet. "We'll agree to discuss the marriage situation later. For now, we need to have some suitable clothing brought in for you. I doubt you had time to pack before you were escorted to my presence."

"What, and take time away from the stunning conversation me and… this trooper… had along the way? Perish the thought!"

Conan shook his head again, and seemed to realize for the first time that this trooper had stood there guarding the door the whole time. I wondered just how many people did that, completely forgot his presence and continued to blather away. The amount of secrets he must know…

"Trooper, you are dismissed. Thank you."

"Sir," my escort said as a way of salute, turning and exiting the room.

I watched him go, sighing with overdramatic flare. "It's going to take forever to find him again, isn't it? My poor fiancé, ever parted by white armor from the love of his life. He must be so devastated."

"I'm not too sure about that," Conan said, handing me my own glass of Bothan brandy. "If he ever heard you sing, you might just become a widow before you were even married."


End file.
